


It's Too Still In Your Sadness

by Chiomi



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Medical, Post-Sburb/Sgrub
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-09
Updated: 2012-07-09
Packaged: 2017-11-09 13:16:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/455858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chiomi/pseuds/Chiomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You storm the flagship, weapons flashing, bodies falling around you. You are on a rescue mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Too Still In Your Sadness

His blood is leaking gold all over the cut-up floor, no longer in spurts but in slow streams. “Kanaya, cut fast, I want you bandaging. Equius, you clean up the disengagement, and do it while we’re working here.”

You pause, and listen for breathing. Nothing. You fumble for the kit you brought, and grab the zipper from the middle. You’ve had your tongue down his genetic duplicate’s throat, but this is procedure, and besides - “Nepeta! Come here.”

Positioning his head and delivering the first breath is all the time it takes for her to crouch at your elbow. “Yes?”

“When I say breath, you squeeze this part about a third of the way in, like this. Not fucking more or you’ll damage his lungs, you hear?”

If it weren’t for the rainbows on her claws, she’d seem almost docile right now. “Sure, Karkitty. Do I have to keep it pressed to his face between them?”

“Take it off now, but normally yes.” You grab the yellow oropharyngeal airway from your kit and measure it against the side of his head, but it extends past the edge of his mandible, and, jegus, he’s so small. You throw it back in and grab the green one, which comes just to the end of his jaw from the corner of his mouth. You insert it and turn it so it holds his tongue out of the way of the air you’re trying to give him. “You can put it back on now. Breath.”

You already know what you’ll find as you reach for his carotid, but you grind your teeth and follow your procedure. Pulseless. You aim for the center of the sternum and your hands come together without conscious thought, fingers of the top hand laced through the fingers of the bottom, angled back just a bit so that all of your force is in the heel of your palm.

His pulmonary-organ-containing bones go crunch when you push on them. You think wildly of the human cereal John talked about, with the small magical creatures with onomatopoeic names. You hold your torso and your shoulders and your arms rigid and bend from the hip as you back off to let his chest recoil and compress again. His ribs continue to shift and crackle, though less so now that you’ve broken all the proximal ones. There’s thirty. “Breath, Nepeta. Another breath. Good.”

You start compressions again. It’s more efficient when you don’t have to move, and Nepeta isn’t squeezing the bag end of the bag-valve mask too hard. “Kanaya, aren’t you done cutting yet?”

“I apologize, Karkat. I have been attempting to determine which tendrils are additional life support, so I can cut them last.”

“We’re no good to him if we’re still here when the slurry-guzzling reinforcements arrive. Cut fast and bandage so we can load and go.” You can see the blood pressure you’re generating in several of the injuries you’ve opened in your attempts to free him, and it tastes of thick despair. “Breath. Breath.”

More compressions. Kanaya’s chainsaw clicks off, and she is rummaging in your kit. She has given up packing individual wounds and is beginning to wrap the whole arm by the end of this cycle. “Breath. Breath. Someone message Sollux to start alchemizing more dressings and bandages.”

You start to sweat. Not as badly as Equius, but then you’re not made almost entirely of sudoriferous glands. Kanaya is working quickly, and her usual perfectionism is left by the wayside. The overlap between chevrons in the bandages going down his arm are uneven, and there don’t look to be enough dressings at all. “More grub-sniffing pressure on the punctures, Kanaya. I’m seeing bleed-through.”

Her lips thin, but she nods.

You both know the two of you will do a better job of bandaging when you are in a safe place. But you need this to be okay right now. You want your spontaneous return of signs of life, and it hasn’t happened yet. “Breath. Breath.”

You start compressions again. You should have taught them this. Kanaya’s the only other one who knows, but you need her bandaging him up. As God of Blood, you should be able to stop it flowing out of him, but no, no such luck. You hadn’t expected it to be quite this bad. You’d never seen a Helmsman before you got here.

“Sir, all controls have been excised.”

You glance at Equius, pick and wire-strippers in hand, yellow blood on his shirt. “Kanaya, go.”

You are on your meteor again, and Sollux isn’t looking up from his computer.

“I’ve got ten non-thtick drethingth, fifty of the normal oneth, and twenty more tenthorth. What elthe do you need?”

“Vriska. I need more luck.”

“TZ killed her again. Four hourth thirteen minuteth to rethurection.”

“Of all the -” an enraged tirade flashes behind your eyes, but you don’t have the focus right now, and you’ll need the energy later, because you’re not stopping compressions until he comes back to life. “Breath. Breath. Kanaya, are you good to keep going? If not, walk Equius through it.”

“I am well able to continue, Karkat. Sollux, would you be so kind as to bring me the supplies you have provided us?”

“Have Thweaty get it for you. I’m buthy.”

Equius’ pride is a palpable force. “I am of course happy to be of service in any way I can,” he says stiffly.

“Blazing Sufferer, did I not motherfucking institute a thrice-damned ‘no overwhelming douchebaggery’ rule for this bulge-garglingly stupid rescue mission? Breath. Equius. Breath. Go get the bandages. Sollux, stop spelunking up your own nook for new ways to be an ass. Kanaya, I’m getting bleeding on the left shoulder.” How does he still have this much blood? Blood is good, though, since it means his pusher still has some to circulate.

Kanaya is quick and efficient, but he’s been bleeding a lot. You are so glad Sollux never ended up a Helmsman. This is what his rescue would have looked like. Exactly so, down to the crooked teeth around the oropharyngeal airway. The thought would have you redoubling your efforts, except that your compression depth now is what you want.

You keep going.

Kanaya finishes her bandaging. Away from the threat of imminent attack, it is neat and thorough. You can’t see any more blood showing through. Nepeta sits quietly at his head and delivers air as ordered, her eyes steady on you.

Equius retreats somewhere, you’re not sure where.

Sollux doesn’t look at you.

You keep going.

You hear the pop and clatter of Feferi and Aradia and Dave returning from their ambush of the Condesce, presumably from marooning her in deep space. It registers as noise and nothing else.

You keep going.

“Karkitty, he’s getting cold.”

If Equius were here, he’d be jealous of how pitying she sounds right now.

“Hypothermia is normal with shock. Breath. Breath.”

“Karkitty, it’s been over a hour.”

You stop, and it’s almost harder than keeping going. You sit back on your heels. You run both hands up your face to rub your eyes, disregarding the blood on your hands. “Fuck.”

You failed. He is dead, already wrapped up like a human mummy, his chest misshapen from broken bones. You want to keep going, to try again, because he’s not really dead yet as long as the blood-pusher is functioning, even if it is assisted. But your arms and back scream at you that they don’t want to be locked rigid any more. You can push past that. Your discomfort doesn’t matter, except that your compressions will be less efficient and he really does look dead. He looks like what Sollux would if the group of you hadn’t ended your homeworld. “You’re right.”

Nepeta puts down the bag-valve-mask and raises her arms over her head. Equius is suddenly there and scooping her up, and her arms fall into place around his neck. “I’m going to go clean up, okay? We tried, and we made progress. Remember that your furriends are here for you.”

Equius carries her out.

You stare at the mangled body in front of you and the reach over to pull out his oropharyngeal airway. No sense sending it out the airlock with him when you clean up the body. You put it next to the bag-valve-mask. Both of them will need to be sterilized, along with your rainbow-stained sickles when you get them from your strife specibus.

You failed and he is dead and it is your fault. Past-you thought it was a good idea to have dual objectives in your attack on the flagship. Past-you is unspeakably moronic. From the sounds next door, the objective that did not involve you imbuing it with inherent failure went just fine. They sound like they are celebrating.

“You let him die.” Sollux has risen from his computer and is facing the body for the first time.

“I’m sorry.”

“Death ith freedom.” The ruined place where his eyes used to be gapes at you from behind Feferi’s goggles.

“I was supposed to save him.”

“You did. Now get up, we need to clean you up.”

“Says the reeking code-monkey.” Standing, you realize that your legs are shaky and you’ve lost most sensation below your knee from kneeling on the floor.

Sollux catches you as you totter. Sollux, whose body is just struts wrapped in electrical wiring and skin. “At leatht I’m not groth and dripping.”

The two of you cling together like the walking wounded as you pass the open door to the victory party. The first of many, presumably, as you take your Game-won powers and fix this universe. The poor humans only had one world, and it is gone, so they are all for making a universe in which they can live as more than oddities and experiments.

The massive communal showers make you feel more exposed than usual today. Sollux drops you in front of the nearest showerhead, and, embarrassingly, you go down. He turns the spray on you as you sit there fully clothed, and you sputter your indignation. Then he strips his shirt off and joins you. He lets himself down the wall slowly, and lines himself up against your side with surgical precision. His head falls on your shoulder gentle as settling ash.

Your hand rises without conscious direction to touch his unbroken sternum.

He crushes your hand to his chest, and whispers into your ear, “I know you were only trying to save him for me.”

“I want to save every troll we can.”

“He was the only one you brought back. You could have just blown up the ship if you hadn’t been trying to save the helmsman.”

You are empty of lies right now, and you can’t respond with truth. So you dig your claws into his chest until he beads yellow and he turns his head towards you, and then you kiss him. You kiss him desperately, because he is alive and will never see a helmblock. You kiss him, and he kisses you back.

The water from the shower is making your clothes stick unpleasantly to your skin, and it is abruptly urgent that you be rid of them. Sollux reaches for the hem of your shirt at the same time you do, and you stop kissing only as long as it takes to peel it over your head.

He throws it to land soggily out of the spray. You trace your thumbs over clavicles like piano wire. He bites your lip and runs his hands down your sides, as symmetrically as he can given your positions. To fix it, you pull him into your lap. You are stronger than him even when your arms feel like overcooked cylindrical wheat-based food.

His bulge is half-hard already, and twitches when you pull him flush against you. He is where you want him, so you try to slow down and savour more. You run your hands down his back, feeling every knobby vertebrae and all that smooth skin. He flicks his tongue into your mouth and runs it along your hard palate. It’s an odd sensation, but intense, and you just want to devour all of him. He is warm and here and in your arms and so very alive, and you want to keep everything just like this forever.

But he has a different idea, and is reaching down your soaking pants to palm your bulge. You break from his mouth and press urgent kisses to his neck. He wraps his long fingers around you and starts stroking, and you reach for him, desperate to reciprocate.

Psionics wrap around your wrists. “No - jutht. Jutht let me, okay?”

“Why?” It’s getting harder to think with his hands on your bulge and his weight reassuring on your thighs.

He bites your earlobe, then says fondly. “Idiot. Can we talk about feelingth when I’m done pailing you?”

He adds a second hand. “Hng. Okay.”

The psionics fade from around your wrists, and you cling to his shoulders. You can feel the slight shifts of scapula as his hands shift on you. You arch your hips into him.

“Sol-”

He presses his mouth tight to yours again, and you thrust your tongue in his mouth in time with the flexion of your hips. He strokes you firmly once, twice, and you’re gone, spurting into his hands.

He stays pressed into you as you come down, and you can still feel his bulge against your thigh, but he’d said no. So when he moves, after not quite long enough, you reach for him again. He flickers psionics uncertainly at you for a moment, but you’re reaching for the shampoo. You squirt some into your palm and then work it into his hair.

You clean each other up and put on dry clothes and then go join the victory party hand in hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Whoops, this was supposed to be KK/Psi, and then this happened. It was also supposed to be a birthday present for VastDerp, but then I got my CPR feelings all over it.
> 
> The only problem with the CPR portrayed here is that the OPA should be inserted before you start doing breaths, and it presents Standard CPR, when studies on compression-only CPR are being done in some areas. I get really sick of movie/TV/novel CPR where no one's ribs are broken and they proceed to have sloppy makeouts. CPR is exhausting, and messy, and it starts when people are -already dead-. Chances of survival if you end up needing CPR are really low.
> 
> But they are lower if no one tries. So go out, take a CPR class, and save a life.


End file.
